What Is A Reliability Culture?

In order to achieve the highest performance standards an organisation needs to develop a reliability-centred culture where everybody recognises their personal responsibility to improve the processes, systems and working relationships, which the success of the organisation depends on. It can be compared to the same attitude developed to safety, now embedded in the psyche of most operators.

What does a strong reliability culture look like?

There is no single view but some of the indicators of a strong reliability culture could be:

• ​All employees are keen to participate in teams to improve processes in their area e.g. members of the purchasing department working to improve the efficiency of the tendering process or operations staff supporting equipment reliability improvement work;
• ​Team members working to improve the relationships between their group and a department with whom they have to interact e.g. operations staff working with project team members to improve project definition or sign-off; and
• ​Operators and technicians paying close attention to the condition of an equipment item by observing operating parameters such as temperature, pressure, sound, production rate and reporting any significant changes.

What are the benefits of a strong reliability culture?

The overall benefit of a strong reliability culture is improved performance and this can be realised in two main ways; through focusing on people and systems/processes across the entire business.

Within virtually all organisations, there is untapped potential among operating staff. Being on the front line means they can spot where improvements are needed in systems and processes, but rarely do they feel empowered to suggest change.

​The opportunities for improving the reliability of equipment and production processes can be significant and is often a strong area of focus for operators.

​To achieve a step change toward a culture of reliability, however, requires that all parts of the organization are involved, not just the operating areas.

​Case Study

In 2013 an operator of a continuous production plant requested a reliability assessment be conducted on its site, which was achieving poor availability – averaging around 85% for the preceding few years. World class levels for a continuous production plant should be around 10% higher.

​The project was to identify where the biggest problems lay and to recommend what could be done to improve plant reliability.

​The findings are illustrated in the diagram below.

One of the main problems contributing to the poor performance was the general attitude of staff. From virtually everybody connected with operations and maintenance it was felt that improving reliability was not their problem but the responsibility of purely the Site Reliability Leadership Team. Clearly, this small group alone had no chance of delivering all the reliability improvement work the site required. 

It was recommended that to improve its reliability performance the site must develop a culture where everybody recognises they have a responsibility for plant reliability – just as they recognise very clearly their responsibility for safety. 

​First Steps

​Kotter’s 8-step Change Management Process [REF 01] is a good basis for any change process and was the model used in this case.

​Kotter’s 8 Step Process for Leading Change

It was identified that the first steps to change the culture of this site must include:

• ​The engagement of the Site Management Team;
• ​The appointment of a Reliability Steering Team (RST); and
• ​A clear “future” vision i.e. what must the new reliability culture deliver?

Not just another initiative

People were naturally sceptical. They had seen many initiatives over the years and this felt the

same. To demonstrate that working towards a “reliability culture” was more than simply another initiative the RST adopted a multi-faceted approach by making investments in some major reliability improvements and also embarking on a series of site wide reliability-themed activities.

​Specific improvements designed to enhance reliability began early in the process and included:

• ​A programme to increase the availability of critical spares and improve the spares management process;
• ​Major investment in new infrastructure for site areas that had been previously neglected; and
• ​A programme to update the existing Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) which had become a major source of frustration.

​As Kotter advises it was necessary to ​”generate buy-in​” using communication and emphasising that this wasn’t a “flash in the pan” approach. It was explained that it would likely take 10 years to get the required culture in place – although some signs of reliability improvement would be visible much sooner.

​Engagement activities

Key aspects of the vision were:

• ​Leadership – commitment to improve reliability via engagement, resources and empowerment;
• ​Engagement – everyone resolutely following established good practices; and
• ​Communication – open and constructive challenge of existing practices.

​Engagement had always been a major issue on the site. In order to raise the profile of reliability and to get as many people involved as possible, a number of events and activities were held over the following 24 month period.

​The first of these was a series of off-site reliability events, intended to involve everyone on-site. These were ambitious. Each event was programmed for a day and involved around 100 staff from varying functions and different parts of the site.

Each event programme included; videos to show the progress of improvement team activities, input from the site manager, plus real and imaginary problem-solving exercises. These events have now become an annual opportunity to communicate and gather staff on the site to discuss reliability issues and potential solutions.

​There has also been various smaller–scale reliability events organized such as:

• ​ A “5-whys” workshop where people were encouraged to carry out root cause analysis of a problem in their area and submit these to win small prizes; and
• ​A reliability week where the ongoing reliability improvement activities were publicized and reliability themed merchandise such as T-shirts and coffee mugs were handed out.

​In addition, a programme of reliability pow-wows has been set in motion where individual discussions are held with as many employees as possible to get their views on: reliability; issues with their job; the strength of their team; feedback on the reliability events etc. These discussions have enabled an ongoing assessment of the “climate” onsite. 

Results

This programme was never expected to have short term results however since it began the site has had a general and consistent improvement in its availability.

While this improvement cannot be wholly attributed to the reliability culture development – a process that is still taking root – there is no question that since the programme started, the profile of reliability on-site has risen significantly and this surely has contributed – via people’s attitudes – to the improved plant performance.

​There are some more directly related benefits of the reliability culture work. As a result of the focus on critical spares, a large expensive motor was purchased as a back-up to a pair of critical motors in service. The lead time for this motor was several months.

Shortly after receipt on-site one of the existing motors failed catastrophically and the availability of this spare saved a very significant amount of production, far outweighing its cost.

​To get everybody onsite feeling more directly involved in the condition of their surroundings, a regular programme of housekeeping improvement has been set up where employees help to tidy the site. Over the short period it has been running, the effects of this on the appearance of the site have been exceptional.

​References

REF 01 – Dr John P. Kotter “The 8 Step Process for Leading Change” – Kotter International

Author

​Chartered Mechanical Engineer with around 30 years of experience in the operations, maintenance and engineering of high hazard plants. Laurence has been a Principal Consultant at ABB for over 10 years delivering maintenance, reliability and  integrity assignments and training in the oil & gas, chemicals and pharmaceuticals